Obviously there is not a single answer, the number grows month after month.
But let's speak about families of platforms: obviously there is the biggest one, j2me, with dozen of implementations and an unresolved huge fragmentation, Brew follows, the younger is IPhone and the newest one is Android, backed up by the giant Google. (edit: I have not mentioned neither Symbian or NGage platforms... a Freudian slip?)
Is that all? (... I should say...) So a poor developer has to develop for 4 (edit: 6) different plarforms, with 3 different programming languages (and I'm not condidering pure j2me as another language), Java (God bless you), C++ and Objective C... well known in the MAC world but a little outdated in my opinion. Hundreds of APIs and environments... it's a bad life the mobile developer life....
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
the great IPhone hope...
Noticed? Everybody is going to develop for IPhone.
Obviously I'm talking about mobile developers. Lots of them is passing to the "dark side of the moon" and announcing services for IPhone.
The question is... why? Seems like mices leaving the sinking boat. But is this the reason? Is the "traditional" mobile phones development sinking like an old heavy broken ship?
Surely everyone is attracted by the distribution model for IPhone apps and games, escaping from the actual brand-centric and semi-monopolistic j2me/brew games distribution model; but what happens in six months when the IPhone market will be flooded with lots of poor quality contents?
Obviously I'm talking about mobile developers. Lots of them is passing to the "dark side of the moon" and announcing services for IPhone.
The question is... why? Seems like mices leaving the sinking boat. But is this the reason? Is the "traditional" mobile phones development sinking like an old heavy broken ship?
Surely everyone is attracted by the distribution model for IPhone apps and games, escaping from the actual brand-centric and semi-monopolistic j2me/brew games distribution model; but what happens in six months when the IPhone market will be flooded with lots of poor quality contents?
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
What's next?
There's something in the air, I can feel that.
A revolution in the mobile games industry is coming. I have my opinion on which type of revolution is coming and I'm setting up the weapons to figth the "final battle" and move on.
In the first half of this years a lot of main actors of the industry were ripped off, some of them were giants with millions of dollars of investments. The first two companies in the mobile games industry, you know who I'm talking about, are throwing out all the rest.
With this environment only two kind of fish survives: the big fish and the small (really small) fish. All the rest perish... If you're a medium fish get big faster or die.
There's another way to survive, shake the market! How? I will make my move on the first half of September, my little contribution for the incoming revolution. Stay tuned!
A revolution in the mobile games industry is coming. I have my opinion on which type of revolution is coming and I'm setting up the weapons to figth the "final battle" and move on.
In the first half of this years a lot of main actors of the industry were ripped off, some of them were giants with millions of dollars of investments. The first two companies in the mobile games industry, you know who I'm talking about, are throwing out all the rest.
With this environment only two kind of fish survives: the big fish and the small (really small) fish. All the rest perish... If you're a medium fish get big faster or die.
There's another way to survive, shake the market! How? I will make my move on the first half of September, my little contribution for the incoming revolution. Stay tuned!
Friday, August 1, 2008
Hello fragmentation my old friend...
I develop mobile games since 2002, someone in the Mobile Games Veterans Group (and in the industry) develops mobile games since the first Nokia has built in Snake.
The first thing I learnt was: "write once runs everywhere" is a lie. A game developed for a Nokia 3510 (to make an example) doesn't run on a Siemens (and viceversa). Screen sizes, APIs, HEAP memory, model specific issues, bugs and implementations are things a good developer learns to fight with.
I can clearly remember that my thoughts in 2004 were: "ok, this is the thing right now, but in the future things should be a little better, one years or two and I can get rid of Nokia S40, Sharp GX series and Siemens phones".
Now we are in the second half of 2008, are the things changed? No at all! Today we develop for powerfull phones with fast processors, decent screen sizes, plenty of heap memory but operators (and publishers) ask us games that have to run on old old old old phones.
I know, the more the compatibility the more the game sells, but... what is today the market share for a 3510i? and for a Sharp GX? and for a Siemes phone?
I see dozen of download reports every week, and these phones doesn't download games! From my point of view, these ports are costs that have no returns at all. Why, then, operators/publishers continues to include these phones in their compatibility lists? Looks like, to make an example, EA ports the last FIFA game for a C64 or a 486 PC; but these platform doesn't sell then EA doesn't develop for them!
What I'm asking is: cut off old (and not selling) phones! Look at the reports, and see wich phones do not download at all, if they do not download, why continue to develop for them?
The first thing I learnt was: "write once runs everywhere" is a lie. A game developed for a Nokia 3510 (to make an example) doesn't run on a Siemens (and viceversa). Screen sizes, APIs, HEAP memory, model specific issues, bugs and implementations are things a good developer learns to fight with.
I can clearly remember that my thoughts in 2004 were: "ok, this is the thing right now, but in the future things should be a little better, one years or two and I can get rid of Nokia S40, Sharp GX series and Siemens phones".
Now we are in the second half of 2008, are the things changed? No at all! Today we develop for powerfull phones with fast processors, decent screen sizes, plenty of heap memory but operators (and publishers) ask us games that have to run on old old old old phones.
I know, the more the compatibility the more the game sells, but... what is today the market share for a 3510i? and for a Sharp GX? and for a Siemes phone?
I see dozen of download reports every week, and these phones doesn't download games! From my point of view, these ports are costs that have no returns at all. Why, then, operators/publishers continues to include these phones in their compatibility lists? Looks like, to make an example, EA ports the last FIFA game for a C64 or a 486 PC; but these platform doesn't sell then EA doesn't develop for them!
What I'm asking is: cut off old (and not selling) phones! Look at the reports, and see wich phones do not download at all, if they do not download, why continue to develop for them?
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